even roses have thorns
by paper piper
Summary: and even beasts have souls. -belle/beast


A/N: something i whipped up because i've been dying to write. i'm having some writer's block, though, sorry guys :( gimme requests if you want!

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**even roses have thorns**

_We turn to gods and beasts because we think man is not enough for us._

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It's funny how towns have scars on them, as if a town itself was a personality, or a slab of flesh, waiting to be marked.

This town had lost its jewel, its pride and joy, the butt of its jokes and its personal oddity—her. Some called her _Beauty_, and some called her _Ours_, but her father had named her Belle, because he liked the easy way it rolled off the tongue.

"Belle," he used to call, just because he liked the way her pretty head would pop up in answer, and the way her bright brown eyes would say, "Papa! Papa, I love you."

But she was gone. She'd been gone for too long, long enough for her to become a legend.

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The story went that she'd gone off into the woods one day to become the lover of a devil. Old hags told the story over cooking fireplaces to shivering children:

"She's the Devil's concubine, now. We can't mourn her loss either, for fear that the LORD punish us, or the Devil pursue us."

So, instead of mourning, they told her story over and over and over. Some kind of perverse reward for having managed to escape.

"But some escape it must have been, only to be forced to the servitude of a foul monster," the old hags continued.

Children sat on her father's porch, asking him questions about the child he lost to Evil.

"Who was she? How did she disappear? Did he come and steal her from your house?" and the children sat with wide eyes and pounding hearts, begging for answers and too afraid to know the truth.

The old inventor sighed and smiled with his wrinkly eyes. "No, no, don't listen to all that stuff—here's what really happened—"

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Once upon a time, the girl turned her head up toward the light and squinted. The creature sat in the darkness, watching her with eyes full of fear and hate. She could only barely hear the muffled sound of its breathing, as if it had something caught in its throat.

"Who's there?"

It didn't answer, but shuffled a little closer. Her breathing hitched.

"Please, just—just tell me what I can do to—"

"There's nothing you can do," the voice rumbled out. "Nothing anyone can do."

She was started a moment: it had sounded so—human.

"I'll do anything," she begged, and the thing could hear the tears in her voice. "Just, let him go."

The old man behind the bars screamed and wept and protested, but the monster was already granting her wish.

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"What am I to call you?" she asked him. They were walking down the corridor to her room. Her eyes were already red and puffy from weeping, yet she glanced up at the Beast with curiosity.

_It'll kill you_, he thought, but he said: "Nothing. Nothing is fitting."

She crunched her eyebrows in confusion now. "But that's hardly practical. I must call you something—"

"No—" he suddenly whipped around and roared at her, for probably the fifth time that night. With his massive, furry paws, he gripped her shoulders and stared at her with every emotion in his eyes. "You never have to speak to me if you don't want to. Please, just don't give me a name."

The wetness in her eyes dried, and she drew away. "What's happened to you, in this place?" She glanced around. "Where did you come from?"

_Would you believe me if I told you?_ He wondered. A few minutes later, he glanced back at her face, which was still relatively dry: she pale and sad, but open.

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She rarely came near him, but he saw, in his mirror (oh, he berated himself even as he watched her—why don't you pathetic creature just go and seek her company?) that she liked to take walks around the castle, outside. Belle (oh, her name, so soft and beautiful!) was so silent and wondering; he could see millions of questions, millions of stories formulating behind those eyes.

"What do you think happened here?" he said one day. He was sitting in his chair when she came back through the door.

She came closer but did not meet his eye. "I think you've been hurt."

He snorted to show her it was a ridiculous idea. "Do I look like someone you can hurt?"

Now Belle stared at him. Her stare was long and formidable, the stare of an inventor's daughter, trained to look inside the details, the stare of a reader, looking for clues to the puzzle. Finally: "I think the outside and the inside are separate. I think people are not always what they appear to be."

The Beast leaned on his massive elbow and glared at her. "Do you pretend to know me, madam?"

She did not answer; instead, she went back to her room.

But the next time she went for a walk, the Beast joined her.

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Their meetings were often silent, but sometimes he struck up interesting conversation. She was surprised at the tenor of his thoughts, the brooding way he spoke, as if he was finally speaking on something he had thought about for years.

How long have you been alone? She wondered, but could not bear to ask.

They talked books, theories, music, fashion, politics—everything she never got to talk about back home. Things that the men in her village told her were not "women's matters."

Then, quite suddenly, she smiled. And the Beast laughed, throwing his head back and showing his great teeth to the sky. He looked majestic all of a sudden, like a griffin, or a lion, some kind of animal king that stood silent watch over all the world. Ancient and wonderful.

"How old are you?"

His eyes softened: she'd never noticed that they were blue.

"Older than you know, but still too young to die."

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His voice was by her ear: "Open your eyes."

Light spilled into the room from lofty windows, illuminating the rows upon rows of color, and oh! The most beautiful colors she had ever seen, because she knew that behind those little blocks on those shelves, that there were beautiful words, woven together into a tapestry of chapters and chapters into stories, and stories into lives. Their lives into her own.

He presented her with a library, and her heart sang.

"Do you like it?"

She walked to one of the shelves, labeled _Short Stories_, and she pulled a random one. She turned, smiling, "Would you like to hear it?"

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How many evenings did they sit together by the fire? He watched her turn the pages with her delicate white hands.

How many miles did they walk around the castle, in spring and snow, talking and laughing and sharing of themselves? She listened to the rumble of his voice in his chest by her ear.

Time turned, bent in on itself.

Still, the cursed rose wept in his bedroom.

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"I got sick," the old man told the children sitting on his porch. "And Belle, she naturally came to save me." He blinked, leaned back and stared behind them. "She really is an angel, though no one else will tell you that."

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She looked splendid that evening, like a star, plucked from the sky and standing in the Beast's ballroom. _Poetry and songs are written about this kind of beauty_, he thought, watching her.

And that night was more than romance—this was the meeting of two hearts on the dance floor, where she clutched his arm and he gently held her waist.

_Oh god oh god_ he thought—_please, let her be the one for me._

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He held out his greatest prize for her, and it shimmered like moonlight in her hands.

"Let me see my father, please," she murmured to the mirror.

But when the mirror showed death, she wept, and she begged to leave.

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It broke her heart. "I'll be back," she promised him under her breath, even as she raced away toward her dying father.

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The rose bent low, as if shamed.

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The town was in an uproar. It was as if her return reminded it that there is a world outside the village, and the place swelled up with rage like a sore, and burst with screaming.

"He'll come after you in the night!" cried Gaston. "I won't rest until his head is on my wall!"

When Belle defended the Beast, they made their decision about her. They judged her then. Matrons turned to each other and whispered, "What can she mean, defending that demon? What is their relationship? Has she become his servant too?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you had feelings for this monster!"

Their eyes were yellow and emotionless to her pleas for mercy, for time, for anything—

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

They locked her away and marched to the castle.

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The man raised his arm against the Beast, and all he could think was, _Please, please let her be safe_.

But when that cruel man said her name, the Beast roared, and he roared with the heart of a man.

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This was high drama. The kind of thing she'd only ever read about in books. Belle could remember nights melting into mornings as she followed heroines as they fought dragons and demons and won back their love. She had wept for delight and sighed for dreaming. The reality of the thing was so much more cruel.

He was lying on the balcony like a great warrior fallen in battle.

She felt dizzy.

_Oh, anything, anything but this, please—nothing can be worse than this—_

Her heart spluttered and started and restarted, as if it were as weak as his breath. She threw her body over his, wiping rain from his eyes and listening for his heart.

"You came back," he murmured weakly.

_Of course I came back, you fool!_ She wanted to cry, but she was too busy apologizing and trying to get him to move.

"I'm glad I got to see you one last time," he was saying, even as she was promising to lay her life down for his.

His eyes rolled shut, and his head lay back.

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Time tripped, stumbled, threatened to slip through their fingers.

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"I love you," she said, and laid her head over his heart.

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The words were like a prayer. His soul looked up, blinked, and slowly rustled its wings—then took off, flying for the surface.

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The Beast was gone. In his place stood a man, a man with a smooth face and fingernails instead of claws. His hair was long and brown, his lips fine and—and—what were they saying?

"Belle, it's me."

Those eyes. Blue. And the kind of blue, the only kind of blue, that could make her tremble with yearning.

"It is you," she said, and as he took her in his arms, she thought,_ finally_. As if somehow she knew all along that he was there.

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"It's a story reserved for stained glass windows and books," the old inventor said, piping at his pipe. "But what a beautiful story, don't you think, Children?"

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_fin._

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A/N: show me some love, and **review**. thanks.


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